Watermark Woods Nursery:

Who doesn’t love watching butterflies?  They flitter from flower to flower, wings opening and closing, just doing their thing as they feed off its nectar, it’s no wonder people are fascinated with them.  You can create your own butterfly garden, by using plants native to your area. Plants have developed over time, so to speak, to work with the insects and birds and butterflies for your region.

Native plants are part of an evolution of a whole foundation of systems and interactions that support a region’s butterflies, birds, insects, bees, etc., who rely on to grow and live.  

Here in the Virginia Piedmont area, one example of how to use native plants is to help feed the Monarch Butterflies during their migration each year.  Their populations have decreased dramatically over the last twenty years due to loss of habitat through development and pesticide use.  Monarchs have a special relationship with milkweed.  Milkweed is the only plant a monarch larva(caterpillar) can survive on. Without milkweed we have no monarchs.